The Ideology of ISIS

Intro Michel Wyss’ ‘The Ideology of ISIS’

Edited by John R. Houk

Intro date: 6/24/16

I found a very interesting PDF written by Michel Wyss circa 2015 while he was attending the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy located in Israel. I took it upon myself to convert the PDF into a Word document in order to cross post Mr. Wyss’ analysis of ISIS.

Michel Wyss Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy photo

There is not much accessible info on Michel Wyss but what I did find shows him to be a very interesting young man. Apparently his native language is German yet proficiently speaks English and French. He claims to have a lesser knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic but still uses the descriptive word “proficiency” when adding them to his language skills. He has gone to school in Europe, Israel and the USA to develop his expertise. Wyss’ last entry at LinkedIn (2015-16) shows has moved beyond student to an expert researcher:

Ragonis Scholarship for 2015/2016

Ragonis Foundation, International Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), and the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC)

July 2015

Recipient of an initial grant for a research proposal on Iranian Proxy Warfare in the Middle East (research to be conducted within a year).

"Promoting Research in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security

The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC), are pleased to announce an annual scholarships awarding to promote research in counter-terrorism and homeland security.

The scholarships will be given in memory of Architect, Major Eyal Ragonis z"l, for his military and civilian accomplishments. The scholarships'​ aim is to promote research in counter-terrorism and homeland security by IDC Herzliya students as well as IDF soldiers and officers."

Michel Wyss LinkedIn photo

Now I share this to demonstrate that Michel Wyss is well qualified to make the insightful analysis he has made about ISIS.

I don’t know if this was Michel Wyss’ intention, but his essay brings a bit of understanding how Multicultural Leftists seem to be way more supportive of Islamic ideology than they should be.

Enjoy the read.

JRH 6/24/16

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The Ideology of ISIS

By Michel Wyss

January 1, 2015

PDF version located: Academia.edu

MA Program: Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy

University: Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya - Israel

Introduction

This research paper examines the ideology of the Salafi-Jihadist organization ISIS (also known as Islamic State, ISIL, Daesh). It offers a brief description of the Salafi-Jihad doctrine and discusses the four core functions of ideology and how they apply in the case of ISIS. It further describes how the ideology of ISIS shares many similarities with modern ideologies, in particular Marxism-Leninism, and examines what distinguishes it from other ideologies, mainly its incorporation of religious motifs. Finally, the paper concludes by arguing that the Salafi-jihad ideology of ISIS is a synthesis of the characteristics of modern ideologies and a very particular interpretation of Islam and discussing some of the ensuing counter-terror policy implications.

Defining Salafi-jihad ideology

According to Drake, ideologies are “the beliefs, values, principles, and objectives - however ill-defined or tenuous - by which a group defines its distinctive political identity and aims” (Drake 1998, pp. 54-55). More to the point, ideologies are “links between thoughts, beliefs and myths on the one hand, and action on the other hand” (Moghadam, 2008, p. 14).

The ideology of ISIS can be described as “Salafi-Jihad” (cf. Moghadam, 2008) or “jihadist-

Salafism”, the combination of “respect for the sacred texts in their most literal form [with] an absolute commitment to jihad” (Kepel, 2002, p. 220). In its essence, Salafi-Jihad contends that the Muslim world is suffering from a conspiracy by the West and as a response, it advocates the return to the practices and beliefs of the first three generation of Muslims, the salaf al-salih (pious ancestors), by means of violent jihad; the latter characteristic distinguishing jihadists from non-violent Salafists engaging in dawa (the call to Islam) which are essentially non-violent proselytizing activities (cf. Moghadam, 2008/2009).

The core functions of ideology

Modern ideologies fulfill four core functions: They raise awareness, diagnose the situation, form identity, and formulate a remedy (Moghadam, 2008). All of them can be applied to the ideology of ISIS: True to its Salafi-Jihadi creed, the organization alleges that the Muslim world is in a sorry state. ISIS statements cite Quranic verses that describe the pre-Islamic Arabs as the "[most] miserable nation, [fewest] in numbers and [the most] divided" (SITE Intelligence Group, 2014) and their propaganda videos refer to the purported humiliation and suffering Muslims have to endure in the lands of the “infidels” (kuffar) (cf. Eye of IS, 2014). According to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the reason for this predicament lies in a conspiracy by the “Jews”, “Crusaders” and their Arab “apostate” allies (Van Ostayen, 2014). Al-Baghdadi also praises its soldiers as “heroes of Jihad […] who defy humiliation and injustice […] and will never abandon fighting”, even if “only one soldier of them remained” (ibid.). Hence, ISIS attempts to instill in its adherents a new identity that offers belonging to a supranational entity, which can offer comfort and security, for recent converts who feel experience an identity crisis, but also to those who feel disoriented by modernity (Moghadam, 2008). Indeed, many Western foreign fighters of ISIS are often recent converts (cf. Kohlmann/Alkhouri, 2014). Finally, Al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph and “leader of the believers” (amir al-mu’minin), rules that every Muslim has the obligation to wage violent jihad in order to defeat the infidels (Van Ostayen, 2014). This obligation is known in the Salafi-Jihad doctrine as fard ayn (individual duty) (Moghadam, 2008/09).

The modern roots of the ISIS doctrine

Even though ISIS advocates establishing a society mimicking the times of Prophet Muhammad and that is based on a strictly literal interpretation of Quran and Sunna purified from any religious innovation such as the incorporation of rationality (Haykel, 2007), its Salafi-Jihad doctrine is very much a product of modernity and shares many traits with other modern ideologies, especially revolutionary socialist ones such as Marxism-Leninism (Rabasa et al., 2006). Like Marxism-Leninism, Salafi-Jihad exhibits an internationalist outlook with a complete disregard for the borders of countries that are envisioned as part of the Islamic caliphate. ISIS’s breaching of the border between Iraq and Syria, which was lauded by its propagandists as “the end of Sykes-Picot”, exemplifies this (Black, 2014). Both Marxism-Leninism and the Salafi-Jihad are essentially universal, with the establishment of the caliphate, a goal shared by all Salafi-Jihad organizations (Byman, 2013), being “the religious equivalent of Marx’s Communist utopia” as Steven Holmes puts it (from Moghadam, 2008, p.

15). Both Marxism-Leninism and ISIS claim to be inspired by a quest for “justice”, a theme that is regularly mentioned in ISIS statements, for example calling its adherents as “fighting against injustice” (SITE Intelligence Group, 2014; Van Ostayen, 2014).

More to the point, both ideologies divide the world into two irreconcilable camps; capitalists and the proletariat in the case of Marxism-Leninism, whereas Salafi-jihad insists on the dichotomy of Muslim believers on one hand and infidels and Muslim apostates (which are not considered “real” Muslims) on the other. Insisting on the unbridgeable difference between the in- and the out-group is an important feature of ideologies; the latter is perceived not only as different but also as opposed and even hostile to the former and hence becomes a legitimate target (Drake, 1998; Moghadam, 2008). Baghdadi’s audio message from November 2014 serves as a case in point. In it he sets forth a priority list of ISIS’s targets, beginning with rafidah (a derogatory term for Shiites), followed by the tawagith (the Arab “apostate” regimes) and finally the West (Van Ostayen, 2014). He justifies violence against these enemies with their alleged enmity against Islam, or rather what ISIS perceives to be Islamic (ibid.).

Ideological groups demand from their adherents a great amount of commitment and loyalty (Moghadam, 2008). Individual members have to submit completely to their doctrines. ISIS is no exception in this regard. The group is said to have killed in less than two months at least 120 foreign fighters who wanted leave to Syria/Iraq and return home (Tufft, 2014).

The role of religion

While ISIS and the Salafi-Jihad doctrine in general share many similarities with modern secular ideologies, they also exhibit certain features that distinguish them from them, mainly through their incorporation of religion. Salafi-Jihad refer to themselves and their enemies in religious terms, they frame their strategies and goals as being religious in nature, and they use their very particular interpretation of religious sources such as the Quran and Sunna as a justification for acts of violence (Moghadam, 2008). Baghdadi’s audio message may again serve as an example. He refers to ISIS fighters repeatedly in religious terms, calling them

“heroes of Jihad”, “lions of tawhid” (the oneness of god) or “people of wala w’al barah”

(allegiance and disavowal, the exemplification of Salafi-Jihad’s “with us or against us”-mentality). Similarly, he labels ISIS’s enemies as “Jews”, “Crusaders”, “infidels”, and “apostates” (Van Osstayen, 2014).

As mentioned above, the Salafi-Jihad doctrine frames waging violent Jihad as fard ayn, and Baghdadi claims this to be the individual duty of each and every Muslim (ibid.). According to him, this is the only way to defy humiliation and suffering and to restore the glory of Islam. In particular, and the Quranic ban on self-murder notwithstanding, Salafi-jihadists promote suicide attacks as “martyrdom operations” (cf. Moghadam, 2008/09), reframing them as permissible sacrifices for the sake of Allah (fisabillah), and they believe that for this very reason, their eventual victory is inevitable (Hafez, 2007). ISIS makes sure to praise its suicide bombers and urges others to follow in their footsteps (Bell, 2014). Some of its propaganda videos depict suicide attacks from multiple angles while anasheeds (religious vocal chants) praise the attackers sacrifice for Allah (ertyanna, 2014).

Finally, ISIS, like other Salafi-Jihadi groups, selectively cites religious sources to justify their violence (SITE Intelligence Group, 2014; Van Ostayen, 2014). This justification is especially important when it comes to violence against other Muslims. Salafi-Jihadists vindicate their violence by declaring the targeted Muslims to be apostates, a process that is known as takfir.

Whereas Al Qaeda has used takfir to justify its fight against the moderate Arab regimes but has refrained from the “most extreme takfiri approach” (Byman, 2014, p. 458), ISIS has embraced it in a way that is reminiscent of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria (Zelin, 2014) and was accused by a high-ranking Al Qaeda official – who was later assassinated, allegedly by ISIS – of “too much takfir” (SITE Intelligence Group, 2014a).

Conclusion: The ISIS doctrine as a synthesis of modern ideology and a particular

interpretation of Islam

As was shown above, the Salafi-Jihad doctrine of ISIS exhibits the traits of any modern ideologies such as drawing a sharp distinction between its adherents and those who oppose it (essentially everyone who does not completely agree with it), but additionally incorporates a set of religious themes based upon its distinct interpretation of Islam emphasizing violent struggle against the “infidels”. Hence, it needs to be understood as a religious ideology (Moghadam, 2008).

This entails certain counter-terror policy implications: On one hand, combating ISIS and Salafi-Jihad in general has to be understood as fighting against an ideology, and not a whole religion (ibid.). On the other hand, taking into account the religious themes of this particular ideology demands that security agencies not only have to deal with ISIS itself and its members but also with organizations, in particular in the West, which disseminate the same ideology without being violent themselves or breaking the law. Finally, the fact that ISIS, like any other group adhering to ideologies, chooses to ignore any information that contradicts its doctrine, should be used against the organization. As Moghadam rightly argues, it needs to be pointed out that groups like ISIS and other Salafi-Jihad adherents, who claim to defend

Muslims, first and foremost engage in killing Muslims themselves (Moghadam, 2008).

Bibliography

Bell, S. (2014, June 16). Canadian ISIS member’s online ‘wake up call’ urges muslims to follow example of calgary suicide bomber. National Post, Retrieved from http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/16/canadian-isis-members-online-wake-up-call-urges-muslims-to-follow-example-of-calgary-suicide-bomber/

Byman, D. (2013). Fighting Salafi-jihadist Insurgencies: How much does religion really matter? Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 36(5), 353-371.

Byman, D. (2014). Buddies or burdens? Understanding the Al Qaeda relationship with its affiliate organizations. Security Studies, 23(3), 431-470.

Drake, C. J. M. (1998). The role of ideology in terrorists’ target selection. Terrorism and Political Violence, 10(2), 53-85.

ertyanna. (2014). Isis filmed two suicide attacks by car. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=da6_1393495276&use_old_player=0

Eye of IS. (2014). Islamic state caliphate eid greetings from the land of khilafah 720p.

Retrieved December 30, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuZ7oGptwb8

Hafez, M. M. (2007). Martyrdom mythology in Iraq: How jihadists frame suicide terrorism in videos and biographies. Terrorism and Political Violence, 19(1), 95-115.

Haykel, B. (2009). On the nature of Salafi thought and action. In R. Meijer (Ed.), Global Salafism: Islam's new religious movement (pp. 33-57). Columbia: Columbia University Press.

Kepel, G. (2002). Jihad: The trail of political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kohlmann, E. & Alkouri, L. (2014). Profiles of foreign fighters in Syria & Iraq. CTC Sentinel, 7(9), 1-5.

Moghadam, A. (2008). The salafi-jihad as a religious ideology. CTC Sentinel, 1(3), 14-16.

Moghadam, A. (2008/09). Motives for martyrdom: Al qaeda, salafi jihad, and the spread of suicide attacks. International Security, 33(3), 46-78.

Rabasa, A.; Chalk, P.; Cragin, K.; Daly, S. A.; Gregg, H. S.; Karasik, T. W.; et al. (2006).

Beyond Al-Waeda. Part 1. The Global Jihadist movement (No. MG-429). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

SITE Intelligence Group. (2014).  ISIS spokesman declares caliphate, rebrands group as

“Islamic state”. Retrieved December 30, 2014, from https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/isis-spokesman-declares-caliphate-rebrands-group-as-islamic-state.html

SITE Intelligence Group. (2014a). Message attributed to zawahiri's arbiter in syria gives advice to ISIL. Retrieved December 20, 2014, from http://ent.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/message-attributed-to-zawahiri-s-arbiter-in-syria-gives-advice-to-isil.html

Tufft, B. (2014, December 29, 2014). Isis 'executes up to 200 fighters' for trying to flee jihad and return home. The Independent, Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-executes-at-least-120-fighters-for-trying-to-flee-and-go-home-9947805.html

Van Ostayen, P. (2014, November 14, 2014). Audio message by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - even if the disbelievers despise such. Message posted to https://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/audio-message-by-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-even-if-the-disbelievers-despise-such/

Zelin, A. Y. (2014). Al-Qaeda disaffiliates with the Islamic state of Iraq and Al-Sham (Policy Alert. Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Retrieved from http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/al-qaeda-disaffiliates-with-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-al-sham

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Wikipedia has a bit more detail about IDC Herzliya located in Israel:

The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (Hebrew: המרכז הבינתחומי הרצליה‎‎Ha-Merkaz ha-Bentehumi Hertseliyya; abbreviated IDC Herzliya) is a private, not-for-profit, and nonsectarian, research university in Israel founded in 1994 by Uriel Reichman.^[1] It is located at Herzliya, in the Tel Aviv District, and is classified as an independent non-budgeted academic institution.^[2]

IDC Herzliya has 8,000 students currently enrolled for undergraduate and graduate degrees, including 2,000 international students from 86 countries around the world.

In 2014 the IDC Herzliya was ranked the most successful academic start-up institution in Israel and outside of the United States, ranking first in Israel and twenty one in the world.^[3] In the same year IDC law graduates achieved the highest passing rate at the national bar examination of all Israeli academic institutions.^[4] Moreover, the IDC Herzliya has been ranked first of 66 Israeli academic institutions in terms of student satisfaction for four consecutive years.^[5] In addition, the IDC Herzliya has been the only academic institution in the world who has won the international Jean Pictet International Humanitarian Law competition, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, in consecutive years, winning it twice in 2010 and 2011.^[6]

… READ THE REST (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya; Wikipedia; page was last modified on 8 June 2016, at 13:45.)

Fascists to the Left and Right

On June 12 I posted an amalgamation of Justin Smith thoughts - that are preceded by an intro by me - he had left on the Facebook group America’s Party. Now Justin has put together an essay about the same thoughts which relate to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

JRH 6/14/15

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Fascists to the Left and Right

America Betrayed

By Justin O. Smith

6/13/2015 7:17 PM

"Show me the 'free trade' section of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, and I'll kiss Obama's ass." - Justin O Smith

Under the banner of free trade with trade an afterthought, America was betrayed on May 21st by forty-nine GOP Senators and thirteen Democrats, who voted for the Trade Promotion Authority [TPA] and corporatism and transnational fascism in order to fast-track the anti-American Trans-Pacific Partnership "trade deal" and create an international rule of law unaccompanied by democracy. This, in essence, would have removed constitutional protections against the creation of global governance structures, and it would transfer Congressional control of numerous issues to international tribunals.

Obama has been negotiating the TPP under a blanket of silence and secrecy for the past five years, and the American people were not allowed to see it before Congress voted on the TPA fast-track on June 12th; only through leaked information do we now understand that the TPP will significantly impact public health, foreign policy, immigration and the environment.

Members of the U.S. Congress have been allowed only limited access to the TPP in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center. They can review one section at a time under "supervision" of a guard, and they are forced to relinquish any notes they made before they leave. Yet more than 500 official corporate "advisors" have unlimited access to the TPP text.

Sen. Rand Paul stated, "It boggles the mind," and he continued, [Who] ... decides to keep a trade treaty secret?"

Michael Wessel has forty years of trade policy experience working for former Democrat Leader Dick Gephardt. He has worked on the North American Free Trade Agreement and he was an advisor to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He is also a "cleared advisor" who has read the text of TPP and opposes large portions of it. He asserts in a Politico interview that he and other cleared advisors are being censored and prevented from publicly sharing their criticisms of the trade deal concerning specific proposals [See HERE]. Like every other issue, Obama pretends that such criticisms do not exist.

Why isn't every single member of Congress demanding the full disclosure of the content of the TPP?

More than this, why would any Republican be willing to give Obama extended powers under TPA, when Obama has shown a real disdain for the U.S. Constitution? Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly called it "insane to give Obama some power to negotiate an important treaty in secret ... [and] not have to account to Congress or the Senate." [See HERE]

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is one of the few people who have read the TPP, and he noted earlier this month: "Under fast-track Congress transfers its authority to the executive and agrees to give up several of its most basic powers. ... the power to write legislation ... to amend legislation ... to fully consider legislation on the floor ... to keep debate open until Senate cloture is invoked, and the constitutional requirement that treaties receive two-thirds vote." __ Session adds, "The latter is especially important since ... it [the TPP] more closely resembles a treaty than a trade deal." [See HERE]

Numerous sources, such as Frank Gaffney - president of the Center for Security Policy, Lou Dobbs - noted scholar and investigative journalist, and political analyst Mark Levin, have all noted that the TPA empowers Obama to unilaterally draft "implementing legislation" that will change U.S. laws and regulations to comply with the agreement he has negotiated. Through the TPA, Congress limits its own ability to debate and amend Obama's "implementing legislation."

Curiously, most of the 49 Senators who voted to fast-track the TPP had not read it, before they voted in favor of the TPA, including presidential candidates Senators Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, although Cruz has since read it. So in essence, these men voted on a significant trade policy bill that affects the U.S. beyond anything America has seen to date, without reading the first word in it.

Deceit and subterfuge are being employed, when government officials claim TPP will not supersede U.S. law, because the fast-tracked legislation will. It also should be highlighted that rulings emanating from international tribunals do result in de facto modifications to a nation's laws through regulations extra-legally, just in the same manner the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules have impacted the U.S.

The transnationalist governance structure of the TPP falls under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission, which has extremely broad powers and is taking the form of a nascent European Union. This new transnational commission has been chartered, by all accounts, with a "Living Agreement" clause, and it will have the authority to amend the agreement after passage, to add members and to issue regulations impacting the environment, commercial policy, healthcare, labor and immigration: An entire section of the TPP is devoted solely to immigration policy for the participating nations.

If one needs more reasons to oppose TPA and TPP, they are found in the Clinton administration's North American Free Trade Agreement (Jan. 1994) and the WTO (Jan. 1995). These two trade treaties have caused serious detrimental effects on the U.S. economy.

Reuters’ reports: “Since the pacts were implemented, U.S. trade deficits, which drag down economic growth, have soared more than 430 percent with our free trade partners. In the same period, they've declined 11 percent with countries that are not free trade partners. Since fast-track authority was used to pass NAFTA and the U.S. entrance into the World Trade Organization, the overall annual U.S. trade deficit in goods has more than quadrupled, from $218 billion to $912 billion."

Daniel DiMicco, Chairman Emeritus of Nucor Steel, explains that these free trade deals haven't been free trade at all. We have lowered our barriers to foreign imports, but they have retained their barriers to our imports, resulting in "unilateral trade disarmament" and enabling "foreign mercantilism."

Along with this, the AFL-CIO labor federation released a report on May 20th that read: "There is no reason to believe that drawing the Pacific Rim countries away from China is a realistic goal, so long as China continues to offer mutually beneficial trade, investments and supply chain opportunities to those countries -- It seems reckless to ask Congress to enter into a deal that has a high probability of undermining U.S. wages, jobs and labor rights, as previous trade agreements have done, especially given that the deal has no real chance of diminishing China's existing economic influence.

In this context, those proponents saying "Our rules, no rules or China’s rules," over the TPA battle, are presenting fallacies and a false premise.

"Free trade" shouldn't destroy one-fourth of all manufacturing jobs in the U.S., as NAFTA did. "Free trade" shouldn't force displaced American workers to take pay cuts of 20% or more, in some cases. And 'free trade" shouldn't give transnational corporations more decision-making power than the U.S. government, making them a part of the government and allowing them to impact U.S. society, when their interference is unwanted and outside the normal parameters of any right they might claim.

In effect, TPA fast-track is an agreement to pre-approve and remove constitutional protections against the creation of a global governance structure, whose structures have not been made public yet. Above any desire to understand the legal and constitutional basis for such secrecy involving the TPP, one should ask, "Why is our Congress even considering such a transfer of U.S. sovereign power to a transnational governance structure of any kind, regardless of how beneficial the 'deal' seems?"

Can anyone show me the "free trade" in the TPP deal? Is this what freedom, liberty and justice for all has come to mean in America? God help US if it is.

Fortunately for all America, the TPA was not allowed to advance, after Speaker Boehner pushed it to a 219-211 win, because a key element, the Trade Adjustment Assistance segment, was defeated 302-126, in an effort led by labor and Nancy Pelosi. But Boehner has suggested that it will be revisited and another vote taken over the next few days, however, the 188 member Democrat caucus contains 124 hard "NO" votes in the House, with the full backing of Senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. So, it is highly likely that the TAA bill won't pass, and the TPA won't even get a vote.

Call Your Congressmen and urge them to stand firm against any new attempt to pass TPA; and then, prepare to engage in the most forceful, powerful Civil Disobedience imaginable, if for some unforeseen reason, our representatives pass the TAA and the TPA, which go against everything remotely in America's best interests. Prepare to even take up arms should it become necessary to do so, in order to make our government and Obama understand just how far 'We the People' believe that they have overreached their authority.

As a longtime supporter of the GOP, I stand with those five Republican Senators, including Jeff Sessions, and the 32 Republican Congressmen, with Tennessee's representatives noticeably missing from their ranks, and all the Democrats who stood and opposed the TPA on June 12th: Let's pray that the next vote permanently derails the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

By Justin O. Smith

_________________________

Edited by John R. Houk

All text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor. All source-related links are by the Editor.

© Justin O. Smith

What Price Freedom? - Or Our New Leviathan

Here are Justin O. Smith’s thoughts on the results of Election Day 2012.

JRH 11/14/12

Please Support SlantRight 2.0 With Your Contribution.

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What Price Freedom? - Or Our New Leviathan

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 11/13/2012 11:37 AM

A dark cloud of fascism surrounded the Beacon of Freedom on November 6th, as America's ill-informed and ignorant electorate rejected the ideas of personal responsibility and fierce independence exhibited by the early pioneer as he or she rose each morning and asked for nothing more than one more day to work towards success and gave thanks to God for seeing that morning's sun. By reelecting Obama, these neo-fascists have gladly embraced mindless open borders, the Welfare State, global warming/"green energy", appeasement and surrender as a foreign policy, and $20 trillion plus deficits. They have sold their Freedom for "free" contraceptives and an Affordable Health Care Act that inflates the cost more than if they had bought their own private insurance policies, and in the bargain they have ensured the enslavement of their children and their children's children to the Leviathan and those Statists who control it!

The job lay-offs and company cutbacks and closures (Walmart, Applebee’s, Krogers) have already begun in anticipation of the AHA becoming entrenched in U.S. law, especially since many small businesses are close to the 50 employee mark that forces them under its regulation, as it takes over an entire industry. Americans must not let their opposition to Obamacare wane, because its positive effects are few and its freedom killing regulations, such as imprisonment for anyone refusing to "buy" it, are vast and devastating both to the individual and the nation.

Obama's "mandate" is a fiction. He only won by two million votes, and he received nine million fewer this time than in 2008. The Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives with a 233-201 margin; and yet, Obama is proceeding with his theme that "the wealthy need to pay their fair share", as he prepares to raise taxes on all Americans by allowing the Bush tax rates to expire. He has suggested raising taxes on everyone making $250,000 or more and a return to the higher tax levels of the Clinton era.

Obama supporters echo his theme, even though the top 15% earners in the U.S. already pay 90% of the taxes. Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat from Maryland, suggests that working families should not have to bear the burden of deficit reduction. Mary Kay Henry, Pres of SEIU, wrote in a letter to the 'Tennessee-Tribune': "We need a country where the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. We need good jobs, we need to need to protect the vital services that millions of Americans rely on and we need to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants", signed with the American Communist Party slogan "In Solidarity"!

Steny Hoyer and others who voted for Obama are not only morally bankrupt, but they are economics illiterate. They do not understand... or even want to understand... that most of America's jobs are found in small businesses. They do not understand that more taxes on the wealthy tend to place brakes on new business, business expansions and the jobs that are created, thus burdening families further once the lay-offs start; fewer regulations and taxes have historically enabled and created a stimulated and vibrant national economy.

Mary Henry must not realize that current U.S. law already provides a path to citizenship for immigrants, but of course, she really meant illegal aliens, who all the Far Left liberals think souls be given amnesty, which did not work in 1986 and will not solve the situation now; legal Hispanic immigrants, who filed their paperwork and paid the fees, don't like the fact that the illegals claim their "right" to be here, expect to go to the head of the line and essentially be rewarded for their criminal behavior. However, Heather McDonald (Manhattan Institute) uses statistics to illustrate that, by and large, Hispanics did not vote for Obama due to his immigration stance, but rather they voted for him due to their own propensity towards large centralized government.

America had the chance to elect a potentially good President, Mitt Romney, who would have made the nation energy independent, but they stuck with the Fascist, who is once again preparing to tax carbon emissions by the metric ton and is positioned to close 200-400 coal plants by 2014; just this week a coal plant in Utah laid off 160 workers. So, when gas prices keep rising and people can barely pay their electric bills (projected to soon increase by 30%), Americans need only to look in the damned mirror, because they created the situation by reelecting the most radical President in American history!

While Speaker of the House John Boehner has not been specific on what goals he might set for raising new federal tax dollars, his lack of spine is apparent, as he makes conciliatory noises and once again kisses their President's backside by suggesting that compromise on the debt ceiling and tax rate is possible. Boehner did, however, recently attempt to sound tough, as he stated that he supported continuing President Bush's tax rates for all income levels.

Now that the debt ceiling "crisis", automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to occur at the end of the year have set the stage for going over the "fiscal cliff," Obama speaks of reaching across the aisle in the spirit of compromise; however, he has shown himself in his first term as an intransigent, secretive pathological LIAR...and now we're supposed to take him at his word and join him? Not just "No", but "Hell No!" No deals should be cut with Obama...Let the Democrats be the ones to shut the government down if they will!

Obama's and Harry Reid's annual $1.5 trillion deficits have done their damage, and our economy may collapse no matter what saving steps are taken. Obama could take every penny from all of our millionaires and billionaires and still not make a dent in the nation's debt. The only chance we can give America is to 1) cut government bureaucracies 2) halt deficit spending 3) limit all spending 4) keep the current tax rates; an economic and financial collapse knows no party or race, and you on the Left are damaging the nation and everyone's future!

Obama, the Divider, and his neo-fascist supporters declare that Americans do not have the right and duty to preserve the society that so many fought and bled for centuries to build; their Utopian lust for a multicultural and transnational society is certain to destroy America if they aren't stopped, because no nation can survive long if its immigrants are not integrating into the culture and learning the common language or if its borders are not secured and its laws enforced. Obama has pitted women against the Church, unions against Wall Street and local governments, the poor against the rich, homosexuals (3% of the pop.) against the Church and the military (military cadre are retiring in droves due to the military's "gay marriage" acceptance) and race against race on many issues. His Marxist call for "social justice" is a farce, and his policies make American life insecure and unsafe, as he also ignores the Constitution, loots the U.S. Treasury, downgrades our Armed Forces and consolidates power.

There are those in America who have chosen tyranny over Liberty, but we must resist, obstruct and sabotage Obama's and the Democrats' anti-American agendas at every turn in order to save our nation, because redistribution of the wealth is not a legitimate function of the government. The sober and resolute citizens can stop this out of control government...we can stop the liberal whores who bow at the altar of government servitude; we will not negotiate the terms of our economic and political servitude, or abandon our children to a dark and bleak future, or allow Obama to create a new order founded in ideas foreign to our culture historically and an anathema in every way. And, they do not get to dictate to us under Our U.S. Constitution, as we remain defiant in our demise, if it comes to pass. To quote the great Mark Levin, "We're not good losers, you better believe we're sore losers! A good loser is a loser forever." With Freedom for All and Our Beloved America's future at stake, no options exist except for resistance ... no surrender!

"We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne, and it has all been in vain. We must fight... We must fight!" -Patrick Henry

By Justin O Smith

________________________

Edited by John R. Houk

THE INTERNATIONAL MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Below is an essay written by Terri K. Wonder on the Muslim Brotherhood. It is an excellent essay informing the reader with a short history of the MB finishing with an Appendix of Radical Islam terrorist groups with the implication of an association with the MB. I intend to use this as a source and it will be easier to link to at SlantRight 2.0 than the Document link from Google.

JRH 8/10/12

Please Support With SlantRight 2.0 Tip Contributions.

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THE INTERNATIONAL MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD:

“SPECIALLY DESIGNATED TERRORIST ORGANIZATION”

A Position Paper for the Committee on the Present Danger

 and

 All Other Interested Parties

Submitted by

Terri K. Wonder

The International Journal of Educational Reform, Assistant Editor

The University of South Florida, Doctoral Candidate

Author of Re-Islamization in Higher Education from Above and Below:

The University of South Florida and Its Global Contexts

941.727.9825

941.730.0162

S.V. Synchronicity

P.O. Box 10156

Bradenton, Florida 34282-0156

Acknowledgments

The author extends her gratitude to Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Mr. John Loftus for their encouragement, recommendations, and wise counsel in drafting this position paper, and in their total support for her professional endeavors in defeating the international terrorist insurgency.

THE INTERNATIONAL MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD:

“SPECIALLY DESIGNATED TERRORIST ORGANIZATION”

A Position Paper for the Committee on the Present Danger

and

 All Other Interested Parties

Executive Summary

The IMB is a clear and present danger to the United States and its allies.  Its “achievements” include the assassination of President Anwar Sadat and being the parent organization of all other Sunni Arab terrorist groups, including Gamaat Islamiyah, Islamic Jihad, HAMAS, and Al-Qaeda.  Leaders from the other terrorist groups (e.g., Sheikh Yasin of HAMAS) have served dual roles in the IMB.  Strategically, the IMB is dedicated to undermining and overthrowing not only Western governments but also any government that does not submit fully to Islamic law. 

This position paper offers an analysis of the IMB’s strategic intentions (Part One).  Another section cites the Gamaat Islamiyah as an exemplary splinter group of the Brotherhood, as a means of demonstrating the overlapping leadership and purposes of the Brotherhood and its offshoots in the Sunni Arab terror network (Part Two). Then it returns to the IMB for an historical overview of the movement’s legacies of subversion, espionage, terrorism, and group/leadership alliances with hostile foreign powers and other terrorist organizations (Part Three).  In addition, it considers post-Cold War geopolitical changes that have given rise to the “mass movement” identified in The 9/11 Commission Report, contending that the IMB, in particular, is prime medium upon which that mass movement grows (Part Four).

Implications arising from this paper provide compelling justification for the Department of Treasury to classify the IMB, under its official name or its covert names, as a Specially Designated Terrorist Organization.

Part One

Ikhwan: The Mother of Sunni Arab Terror Movements

The IMB’s Strategic Intentions

The IMB (a.k.a. Ikhwan, Muslim Brotherhood, Society of Muslim Brothers) has a legacy of patiently waiting for opportunities to make what its leading theoretician, educator, and martyr Sayyid Qutb called “concealed advances” (al-haraka bi’l-mafhum) followed by “phases of power” (marhalat al-tamakkun).  In addition, the IMB maintains a hostile geopolitical strategy to Islamize the “domain of war” (dar al-harb) by exacting a two-pronged agenda of institutional subversion and political violence.  Knowing when to retreat or when to advance in the “domain of war” depends upon the IMB’s strategic assessment of a host society’s “weakness” (istid’af).[1]

The IMB defines the “domain of war” to all lands previously conquered during earlier epochs of Muslim conquest (e.g., Spain, parts of France, and many east European locales) and to lands where Muslims live but have not yet been brought under the total control of Islamic law (e.g., all regions of the world today except for Iran and Sudan, ostensibly).

In its educational theory published by The International Institute of Islamic Thought, the IMB refers to its strategic vision as the “Islamization of society and knowledge,” a process based on Pax Islamica, the IMB’s re-codification of Pax Romana. Under Pax Islamica, a minority Muslim group infiltrates through legitimate legal processes a majority’s secular institutions, starting with its universities.  Over time, “Islamized” Muslim and non-Muslim graduates of universities enter the workforce, including a nation’s civil service sectors. [2]   From there, arguably, those “Islamized” graduates are poised to subvert a host society’s law enforcement branches, intelligence community, military branches, and foreign services.

When the IMB has determined that institutions in a host society have been weakened sufficiently “from below” through its “Islamization” reform program, it leaves its phase of “concealment” (kitman) and enters into direct action, which could be anything from a leadership coup in a mosque, to the takeover of a police station, to a government coup d’etat.[3]

Following the aforementioned preparation stage of “Islamization of society and knowledge,” the IMB, according to its website, http://www.ummah.org.uk/ikhwan/, intends to overthrow its host society and implement Islamic law (shariah):

Al-Ikhwan believe that ruling a government should be the step which follows preparing (most of) the society for accepting Islamic laws. Otherwise ruling a totally corrupt society thru [sic] a militant government-overthrow is a great risk.  (Bold type not added)

The movement also states that it seeks that final objective in “over 70 countries all over the world” but “is flexible enough to allow working under the ‘Ikhwan’ name, under other names, or working according to every country’s circumstances.” Permitting IMB groups to form “under other names” or “working according to every country’s circumstances” illustrates the fundamentally covert mind of the organization and its initiates.

The strategic intentions of the IMB are identical to those of Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Gamaat Islamiyyah and other Sunni Arab terrorist organizations (see Appendix A).  The IMB is the parent organization to those terrorist groups. However, the United States of America is the only Western nation that has not designated the International Muslim Brotherhood (IMB) as a terrorist organization. 

Part Two

Gamaat Islamiyah: The Formation of a Splinter Group

from the Neo-Muslim Brothers

From Qutb’s Prison Cell to the Islamic Masses

Following President Nasser’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood and the execution of the organization’s theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist feminist and Muslim Sister, Zaynab Al-Ghazali, aided the reformulation of the Brotherhood by teaching Qutb’s prison writings in student circles in various universities along the Nile River.  Those circles came to be known as the Gamaat Islamiyah, or “Islamic Associations.”  They were “a skeleton network of ‘cadres’ . . . that would eventually make the associations the dominant voice in the universities of the Arab world.”[4]  In general, the developments described hereinafter are not limited to the Gamaat; other Egyptian-based terrorist movements like the Islamic Jihad also formed during Qutb’s imprisonment or within a few years after his execution.

Here, it is instructive to note that those Egyptian Gamaat “cadres” were also Ikhwan initiates who were repressed by Nasser’s government and later Sadat’s for seditious conspiracy and other actions aimed at destabilizing the Egyptian state. Periodically, they would be encouraged to leave Egypt or be exiled from Egypt. They quickly re-established themselves as students and professors in other postcolonial states requiring intellectual talent.[5]  They also re-settled in Saudi Arabia’s universities, where they would become the professors of future World Islamic Front/Al-Qaeda leaders like Sheikh Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden.[6] 

As has been the case in Egypt since the 1940’s and as may be generalizable to other countries where these initiates emigrated, the heads of  academic branches were more likely than initiates from other professional branches to amass power within their own organization and to arouse suspicion by the state.[7]

Original documents analysis pertaining to the Muslim Students Association and Islamic Society of North America’s development indicates that individuals associated with the Egyptian Brotherhood during the Gamaat’s emergence in the 1960’s also led a

Qutb-inspired hijra to universities within the United States.[8]  By that time, the young Ikhwan/Gammat students had adopted Qutb’s re-formulation of the term hijra to mean “going underground.”[9]

The Gamaat’s Strategic Goals and Transnational Developments: From the Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda

Advancing their interpretations of Qutb’s prison writings, Signposts, and other increasingly radicalized doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamaat cadres questioned secular instructional methods, which they believed prevented world transformation under the banner of Islam. Under Mrs. Al-Ghazali’s and the neo-Muslim Brotherhood’s direction, the Gamaat students and their professor emirs in Egypt’s universities advanced a goal to “Islamize” Egyptian “society and knowledge” gradually over a period of decades, until the Gamaat and the Brotherhood had determined that Egypt had been fully prepared for a successful military overthrow.[10]  Eventually, this socio-educational program would be codified into theory and practice set forth by the IIIT and its founder, Isma’il Al-Faruqi, at Temple University in the United States.

Thus, the Gamaat’s strategic goals were exactly like those of its parent organization: a two-tiered approach of institutional subversion to prepare society for future direct action against the state. The Gamaat is sometimes referred to as “Islamic Group” or “Jamaat Islamiyah.”

Another goal of the Gamaat, when it was still in its earliest developmental stage in the early 1970’s, was to check post-Nasserist Marxist influences on university campuses and in Egyptian society. This was a goal welcomed by the new president Sadat, the “Believing President” who once again allowed Ikwhan followers, including the Gamaat, to operate legally.[11]

The anti-Marxist goals of the Gamaat would hold in later years greater significance in Afghanistan, where the Gamaat adopted a far more strident, ultranationalist persona that would be exported to Europe and the United States.

Given the Gamaat’s perennial interest in countering Marxist influences and in filling post-Marxist socio-political vacuums, one might consider how the Gamaat may have insinuated itself in other regions of the world (e.g., Latin America) and in academic institutions where Marxist thought and policy was once d’ rigueur.

Soon after Sadat welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood back into legal existence, the president would regret the move when the parent organization’s Gamaat sympathizers began initiating destabilizing actions in cities like Asyut and Minya. These were professor-led student rebellions that resulted in the hunting of so-called “Orientalist” professors like Richard Mitchell and in small raids on local police stations.[12] 

In Minya, the faculty emir of the Gamaat was Abu Talal Al-Qasimy (aka, Talaat Fouad Qassem), who would become the number three cleric involved in the Bosnian jihad, an outgrowth of the Al-Qaeda movement in Afghanistan. Many of the Egyptian-born Gamaat leaders began as student leaders; then they became faculty emirs; and then, having cross-pollinated into the Al-Qaeda network in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, then became senior aides to Osama Bin Laden.[13]

In Bosnia, and true to their strategic mind, the Gamaat “Afghan-Arabs” did not distinguish between “infidels” who were in Bosnia to help them (e.g., UN troops) and those that  were not (e.g., Serbian Christians). Among their many actions in the former Yugoslavia was a car bomb attack in 1994 on a police facility and personnel.  The attack injured 29 people.[14]

That same year, Gamaat gunmen opened fire on a Nile cruise ship, wounding a German tourist; bombed a passenger train in Asyut, injuring six foreign tourists; opened fire at another passenger train in Asyut, injuring a Polish woman, a Thai woman, and two Egyptian women.

In 1995, the Gamaat continued its attacks outside Egypt, but heightening its offensive tactics to include suicide attacks. In Islamabad, Pakistan, the group claimed responsibility for the death of a diplomat at the Egyptian embassy. Sixteen people were killed and sixty injured. Within Egypt, the same organization continued its assaults on passenger trains.

Gamaat in Pakistan and in Bangladesh publicly supported the Taliban regime before the United States invasion and during Operation Enduring Freedom. One day after the 9/11 attacks, Russian intelligence informed their counterparts in the United States that Gamaat was most likely involved in those attacks. Gamaat leaders have been involved in the sheltering and aid of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in safe houses.[15]

Gamaat’s Interest in Foreign Powers: Support for Nuclear Proliferation

Senior leaders of the Gamaat absorbed into Al-Qaeda support nuclear proliferation and they embrace Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. They broadcast that such acquisition not only would benefit Pakistan but also the worldwide “Community of the Faithful,” the Ummah. Gamaat leaders advocate ignoring international nuclear proliferation treaties.[16]

Like its parent organization, the IMB, the Gamaat possesses a geopolitical strategic program with religious ultra-nationalist objectives that include attainment of nuclear power by potential foreign powers. In addition, the Gamaat has proven itself a key player in the global Afghan-Arab network that acts against international peacekeeping efforts and that has caused severe destabilization of the economy and government of a key United States ally, Egypt.

Part Three

The Ikhwan Movement’s History of Covert Action

Alliance with Hostile Foreign Powers and Legacy of Political Violence

By the late 1930’s, the IMB, in its earliest manifestations in Egypt and the Levant, had begun recruiting “rovers” (jawwalah) from its para-educational subsystems.  Found in the movement’s summer youth camps, “rovers” allowed Ikwhan founder Hassan Al-Banna to advance direct confrontation with the Egyptian state.  As the movement became larger and more successful, its para-military “rovers” and their leadership needed more management.  Therefore, the movement developed in 1943 what it called the “Secret Apparatus,” (al-Jihaz al-Sirri) that shadowed Egypt’s police, military, and intelligence institutions.

The organization became so strong that it confidently aligned itself with the Nazis, who hoped to seize control of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian sub-continent. The Brotherhood found in the Nazis a useful, temporary ally because it sought to de-colonize British Egypt under King Farouk during a period known in the Middle East as “de-Islamization.”  The organization believed that alignment with an expansionist foreign power could advance that strategic objective. For example, in Baathist Iraq, the uncle who raised Saddam Hussein was a Muslim Brother who aided the attempted Nazi coup of Baghdad.

“Rovers” were used in both the Sinai and Libyan deserts as a Muslim Brotherhood-Nazi espionage/covert action network. Erwin Rommel’s advance into the Libyan Desert, for example, was of high importance to the Muslim Brotherhood and Nazis because “rovers” could pass intelligence to Rommel’s troops and circulate in Egyptian universities pro-Axis propaganda translated into Arabic. The Brotherhood members in the universities staged demonstrations in support of the Nazis’ advance toward Egypt even as founder Hassan Al-Banna was assuring King Farouk that he had no intention of supporting the Nazis.[17]  Revered by Ikhwan initiates today, Al-Banna’s dissembling to King Farouk exemplifies the organization’s duplicitous approach in the political arena. 

In addition to covert action in Egypt’s desert regions, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Al Haj Mohamed Amin Hussein, led a division of Handzar SS troops in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia in 1944.  In a reference to European anti-Semitism and his knowledge of Jewish concentration camps, the mufti stated “there were considerable similarities between Islamic principles and National Socialism.”[18]

The IMB’s alliance with the Nazis represents the movement’s earliest foray into geopolitical alignment hostile to the United States and its allies.  Given that the IMB possesses a geopolitical strategic mind and has aligned itself with hostile states in the past, our government should not underestimate the possibility that the IMB and its leaders may have now or will have in the future alliances with hostile foreign powers.  Those alliances could involve material and member support for terrorism, covert action, and other acts of political subversion.

In addition to fomenting sedition in 1940’s Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has attempted to overthrow all other Egyptian governments under Presidents Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak.  Since the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Accords, Egypt has been an ally of the United States.

Wherever the IMB, its members, and leaders have entered into “phases of power” after long periods of socio-political preparation and kitman, the movement’s para-military activities have been cunning and ruthless. At the same time the organization was publishing in its official magazine that  “love” was the cornerstone of the Brotherhood’s way of life,[19]  its members were acting upon fatwas against Muslim intellectuals, attacking religious minorities, and laying siege to police stations. Those kinds of actions violate civil rights and criminal laws of the United States.

Those activities emanated from the group’s doctrine of taqiyyah, or “disinformation,” about its strategic intentions and its infiltration of Egypt’s military ranks.  For example, Sadat’s assassin was a member of Egypt’s armed forces and held the nation’s highest award for sharp-shooting.  However, he was loyal to the Ikwhan movement and not to his president or country; and so when he realized that he had an opportunity to assassinate the president of his country, he and other Brotherhood initiates in Egypt’s armed forces planned a military coup designed to seize control of Egypt’s major cities. 

The IMB provides theoretical and material support to radical Palestinian terrorist organizations (e.g., HAMAS) in West Bank and Gaza. All Islamic Jihad factions, HAMAS, and Al-Qaeda are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Such is the case for many other Islamic revolutionary terrorist organizations throughout the world. Each of those organizations is a Specifically Designated Terrorist Organization.

The IMB also has caused sedition in other countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, and the Sudan, where Muslim Brotherhood members in exile from Egypt provided theoretical and material support to its initiates in those countries’ university systems.  The Algerian Salvation Front, Islamic Tendency Movement, and the Sudanese Liberation Front were founded and directed by Muslim Brothers.  The United States also regards those groups as terrorist organizations.  The IMB is a “mass movement” that inspires and supports those regional movements.

As has been documented extensively in North American media, Muslim Brotherhood activity exists within the superstructure of the continent’s major Islamic religious, political, and social organizations.  Those groups, through their civil rights and political organizations, are alleged to have engaged in taqiyyah after the 9/11 attacks, in order to make themselves appear more moderate than they had publicized previously.  In this way, the groups could distance themselves from leaders who had been implicated or convicted of criminal activity related to terrorism.  At the same time, however, new leaders could continue to advance the subversive element of their cause, positioning leaders in elected office at local, state, and federal levels of government. Taqiyyah in public relations is a classic tactic of the IMB.

If the United States watches with great concern the recent election of Muslim Brothers to Egyptian parliament, then it should be no less concerned about the potential for their brethren or brethren’s children in the United States who may realize similar accomplishments. Adding the IMB to the Specially Designated Terrorist Organization list would help discredit the candidacy of an initiate running for high office or seeking security clearance who also subscribes to the credo, “The Koran is My Constitution,” an axiom that is a tell-tale mark of a Muslim Brother.[20]

In addition, the movement’s educational apparatus, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, has developed an educational theory published through Islamic Publishing, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, calling for slow intellectual and economic subversion of secular universities throughout the world (see Strategic Intentions section, above).  When considered as “concealed advances,” such subversive activity provides cause for government policy change because the movement regards “concealed advances” as preparation for direct action, or “phases of power.” 

The movement’s interest in Islamizing North America began in the 1930’s, when the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt divided the world into nine geopolitical regions, including one for Islamic minorities that included the Americas, Soviet Union, and Europe. The purpose of establishing those geopolitical divisions was to study the movement’s needs in other places, so that the movement’s Central Headquarters in Cairo could assess intelligence about its strategic progress and recommend future actions around the globe.[21] In other words, the IMB has been studying the United States and its allies since the 1930’s in order to determine when conditions are right to further advance its goal to replace existing state constitutions with others based on Islamic law. As such, it must be considered a hostile organization with hostile membership devoted to the eventual advancement of government overthrow through political violence.

Part Four

Post-Cold War Considerations and the 9/11 Commission Findings

For the first time in our nation’s history of variously retreating from, containing, or eradicating international terrorism emanating from Islamic revolutionary sources, The 9/11 Commission Report calls upon the United States of America to acknowledge that a “mass movement” underpins the latest manifestations of Islamic terrorism that emerged during a post-Cold War vacuum of uncertain, shifting strategic alliances and ethnic conflicts around the globe.

The IMB is an ultra-nationalist ideological mass movement that originated in Cairo, Egypt, during the late 1920’s.  The timing coincides with the development of the Twentieth Century’s other ultra-nationalist ideological mass movements, Nazism and Communism, which arose as major geopolitical forces challenging the peace and security of the United States of America and its allies.

The organization’s historical ability to gain the sympathy of diverse political groups and broad classes of people, combined with its perennial ability of leaders to harness popular credibility through electoral means, does not negate the fundamentally inimical nature of the IMB and its strategic purposes. Indeed, many a leader from the previous century’s other ultra-nationalist ideologies found in electoral processes prime pathways to constitutional subversion as preparation toward government overthrow.

Adolf Hitler did not rise to power through a putsch but through legitimate electoral means. Khartoum law professor Hassan Al-Turabi’s movement in the Sudan also engineered a successful coup by slowly eroding the country’s political and legal system in advance preparation. Al-Turabi was the leader of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood movement, which seeks to “Islamize and Arabize” Africa, according to interviews with Al-Turabi. The rogue dictatorship he created is now known for its persecution of religious minorities and non-Arabs, and for its sponsorship of Al-Qaeda’s World Islamic Front that declared war on the United States and its allies in 1998. The same Muslim Brotherhood leader, Al-Turabi, established a diplomatic alliance with Iran.

Part Five

Conclusion

After the defeat of the Triple Axis in World War II and during the Cold War, the United States adopted a policy of neutrality toward the IMB. Both the United States and the IMB

had mutual cause for defeating the Soviet Union and other political forces that did not represent the best interests of the United States and its coalition of liberal-democratic nations. 

The IMB, as has been shown above regarding the creation of the Gamaat Islamiyah by Muslim Brothers and Sisters, is the heart of the hydra of Sunni Arab terrorist groups. The close connection between the two groups provides cause for speculation that the Gamaat may in fact be the IMB, but is acting under a covert name, just as the Brotherhood webpage suggests (see  IMB Strategic Intentions section above).

In the academic world and in foreign services institutes, neutrality toward the IMB invariably resulted in a pervasive myth that the IMB was a benign organization lacking hostile strategic intentions. That false assumption is but another cause of our nation’s so-called “failure of imagination” described in The 9/11 Commission Report.

The IMB--replete with its strategic intentions, historical legacy of political violence as a means to achieve those intentions, and support of other terrorist movements--is germane to the advancement of Islamic terrorism under the banner of the Twentieth Century’s third ultra-nationalist mass movement, Islamism.[22]

Given the current post-Cold War geopolitical realities--in which Islamism appointed itself the successor to Nazism and Communism in its challenge to the peace and security of the United States and its allies--it is vital that our nation reconsider the IMB’s absence on the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations. 

In addition, the IMB’s offshoot, Gamaat Islamiyah, is a member organization of

Al-Qaeda’s World Islamic Front and has been for the past decade a major cause of terrorism against the United States and its allies. 

If the United States continues its tacit legitimization of the IMB by excluding it from the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations, then the United States and its allies must  prepare for the inevitable: that when one Brotherhood offshoot is degraded, another Brotherhood offshoot takes its place.

Amending the list to include the IMB is therefore vital to disrupting the financing of international terror networks and to degrading the mass movement identified in The 9/11 Commission Report.

                 

Appendix A

Sunni Arab Terrorist Groups*

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)

Led by Sabri Al-Banna; split from PLO in 1974; comprised of political, military, and financial committees; attacks in 20 countries; targets include United States, Israel, Western nations, liberal Muslims; operational presence in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria; shut down in Libya and Egypt in 1999.

Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)

Based in southern Philippines; leaders worked and studied in Middle East; fought in Afghanistan; led by Khadaffy Janjalapani; kidnappings and attacks on foreign persons, Malaysians, journalists, tourists.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AMB)

Small cells of Fatah-associated activists; emerged during 2000 Intifada; attacks on Israeli targets; shootings and suicide bombings against Israeli military and civilians, including inadvertent deaths of four United State citizens; operates in West Bank and Gaza.

Armed Islamic Group (GIA)

Began in Algiers in 1992 after defeat of Algerian Salvation Front (FIS) in national elections; attacks on civilians, liberal Muslims, journalists, and foreign residents; similar attacks in France; assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, bombings; fundraising for Algerian-based mujahideen noted in early 1990’s issues of PIJ leader Sami Al-Arian’s Inquiry, published in Tampa, Florida; external aid from Western sources and Algerian expatriates, Iran, Sudan, GSPC.

Asbat Al-Ansar (AA)

“Partisans’ League” based in Lebanon; comprised of mostly Palestinians; associated with Osama bin Laden; attacks on Lebanese and international targets, including embassies; external aid from Sunni Arab networks worldwide and Osama bin Laden.

Gamaat Islamiya (GI)

For group description see Part Two, above; worldwide presence, including United Kingdom, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Austria; possibly Iran, bin Laden, Afghan militants, non-governmental organizations.

HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement)

Formed in 1987 during first Intifada; associated with Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades; large-scale suicide attacks against Israel; operates in West Bank and Gaza, with international support network; leaders present in other places, like United States, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.

Al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Islamic Jihad, Jihad Group)

Active since late 1970’s; merged with Al-Qaeda in June 2001 but has independent capabilities; attacks on Egyptian and Israeli interests in Egypt and abroad; headquartered in Cairo but has bases in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, United Kingdom.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)

Developed in Palestinian territories and Egypt in 1970’s; attacks on Israeli targets, military and civilian, mostly through large-scale suicide attacks;  operates in Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and in United Kingdom and United States with support from expatriates and Palestinian sympathizers; assistance from Syria and Iran.

Al-Qaeda

Established in late 1980’s; united with other Sunni Arab groups to form a Sunni Arab caliphate throughout the world; attacks on the West, liberal Muslims, and non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews; worldwide support network linked to other Sunni Arab groups through front businesses, charities, individuals.

Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC)

Eclipsed GIA in 1998; effective armed group inside Algeria;  primarily avoids civilian attacks inside Algeria; co-opted external support networks in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Iran, Sudan; government and military targets

*See Michael R. Ronczkowski, Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime, (2004), CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

---

[1] See Gilles Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh (1984/2003), U of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

[2] See Terri K. Wonder, Re-Islamization in Higher Education from Above and Below: The University of South Florida and Its Global Contexts, unpublished doctoral thesis, to be defended in January 2006 at The University of South Florida. See also Rita Katz, Terrorist Hunter (2004), HarperCollins, New York, which proves that the IIIT, Herndon, Virginia, is part of the IMB apparatus.

[3] See Kepel (1984/2003).

[4] See Kepel (1984/2003), p.83.

[5] See Wonder (2006).

[6] See Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom, (2004),

[7] See Mitchell (1969/1993).

[8] See Wonder (2006).

[9] See Kepel (1984/2003).

[10] See Kepel (1984/2003).

[11] See Kepel (1984/2003).

[12] See Kepel (1984/2003).

[13] See Evan F. Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, (2004), Berg Publishing, New York, NY.

[14] http://www.ict.org.il

[15] See Kohlman (2004).

[16] http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/379/op2.htm.

[17] See Richard Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers (1969/1993), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

[18] See Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West (1998), Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY.

[19] See Kepel (1984/2003)

[20] See Mitchell (1969/1993).

[21] See Mitchell (1969/1993).

[22] See Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America (2002), Norton, New York, NY.